Lambert's Love Story

From Johnny Cash and June Carter to Tim McGraw and Faith Hill, country music's most-fabled marrieds tend to be cut from the same cloth: He's the tough guy; she's the sweetheart. Lambert and Shelton, who won the Academy of Country Music Award for Female and Male Vocalist of the Year, respectively, in 2010 and 2011, turn that tradition on its head. "I'm a little rough around the edges sometimes," she concedes. "The best example I can set is to be real and show my flaws. I can be pretty intense, and I can be a downer."

Blake is the opposite, so good-natured it's almost ridiculous, she says: "He laughs at everything, and it's hard for him to be serious, which can sometimes be annoying. We balance each other out, though; he lightens my heart, and I rope him in."

They met for the first time in 2005, performing "You're the Reason God Made Oklahoma" on Country Music Television's 100 Greatest Duets special. (Lambert had earned attention as a third-place winner on Nashville Star, a country version of American Idol, after spending her late teen years touring honky-tonks. College wasn't for her  it was always music, all or nothing, and "I freakin' did it!" she says with delight.)

Lambert had grown up singing that particular duet with her dad, and Shelton made her feel comfortable immediately. "That sense of humor and smile draw you in," she says. "He's one of those people who light up a room." Still, she has just one explanation for the butterflies in her stomach (they weren't due to nerves): "There was definitely chemistry." Looking back at the video, Shelton has said he realized he was falling in love with her right there on the stage.

But there was a huge hitch: Shelton was married to Kaynette Williams, his road manager. "People made assumptions that were not true," says Lambert of her attraction to a married man. The lessons of her childhood  the complications of love that she saw among her parents' clients  guided her. "We were honest with each other: We talked, we hung out, and we wrote songs a couple of times," she explains.

She didn't have to wait it out for long. In 2006, Shelton divorced. "It's never an easy thing to go through, but it happens every day. People fall in and out of love; they get divorced and remarried," Lambert says with her characteristic candor. "I didn't expect to find myself in that situation, but I just dealt with it. I think that God has a person for you; Blake Shelton is in my life for a reason. He's supposed to be my husband."

But neither was in a hurry to tie the knot. After his divorce, 29-year-old Shelton was gun-shy about marriage; at 22, Lambert was just getting her start as a musician.

So they saw each other when their schedules permitted. Lambert threw a surprise party in Texas for Shelton's 30th birthday; it was the first time she and her parents met his folks. "It was awesome," she recalls. "My family loves him, and his family loves me, and that's so priceless."

Their often long-distance courtship revolved around text-messages. "We're not really big phone talkers. I think it's good to have a bit of time to miss the person and to save up stories for when you get home," Lambert says.

In 2010, Shelton asked Mr. Lambert for his daughter's hand, an old-fashioned Southern touch that impressed his intended. "Well, ol' Blake finally got a brain!!!" Lambert famously tweeted, with a picture showing off her five-carat engagement ring. "And I didn't say no!!" They were married a year later on a ranch in Texas; the bride walked down the aisle in her mother's wedding dress and custom-made cowboy boots. The new king and queen of country spent their first anniversary at home. "That was our present to each other, because we are never home," she explains. "So we just hung out. We don't need anything else."

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